Kodomo dake wo shitteru koto (Something only children know)
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Unable to stand the pressures of Tokyo trying to contain him again in its grasp, Ryuichi decides to leave it all over again. But unlike before, some people won't let him go without a protest…


**fandom: Gravitation**  
 **title: Kodomo dake wo shitteru koto.**  
 **pairing: shuichi x ryuichi**  
 **rating: r**  
 **description – Unable to stand the pressures of Tokyo trying to contain him again in its grasp, Ryuichi decides to leave it all over again. But unlike before, some people won't let him go without a protest…**

 **Disclaimer – Gravitation belongs to Murakami Maki-sama and I am just the Gravitation fan that can't stop writing fanfics about her damn, awesomely inspiring manga.  
**

 **How did I end up here?**  
 **It seems I drowned**  
 **into the roots whose blood gave life**  
 **to someone like me.**

 **Looking up, his melancholic eyes,**  
 **defiant and nostalgic,**  
 **stared dispassionately at**  
 **The Tower**  
 **and I, caught in the rage of quiet solitude,**  
 **became enthralled at**  
 **such a sight of**  
 **Gentle Cruelty.**

 **How did I end up HERE**  
 **When it was all supposed to remain distant,**  
 **faraway,**  
 **untouched,**  
 **untainted by**

 **Reason And Logic,**

 **But Those Eyes beckoned me.**

 **Vehemently,**  
 **Incessantly,**  
 **Lovingly,**  
 **Cowardly, and**  
 **Kind,**  
 **I think I was more**  
 **aware of my mortality,**

 **these life movements**  
 **mixed with a**  
 **dream that connected**

 **Me to this current reality.**

 **When I was only five years old,**  
 **I was just opening my magazine**  
 **and such a mundane thing changed**

 **My whole life,**

 **transforming sadness into**  
 **Power, Style, Inspiration,**  
 **Obsession, and**  
 **Ultimate Affection.**

 **Kodomo dake wo shitteru koto.**  
 **(Something only children know.)**  
 **By miyamoto yui**

"Thank you very much!" I shouted out with a smile.

After bowing an enthusiastic show of appreciation to the sponsors at the restaurant, I hurriedly left when we were parting at the see-through doors automatically sliding open before us. Even though I was out on a public street, I tried my best to slip through without being noticed.  
No make-up and my natural hair color growing out day-by-day, I almost passed for my old self.

The one when I was hushed and unknown in the streets of Tokyo. A time when I was just some rich kid attendants in the major department stores didn't even want to serve until they realized what last name I carried.

It was a time I tried so hard for people to notice my music and me.

"Where is that now?" I whispered to myself as I slipped in between people and alleyways, so familiar with the many shortcuts to get back to Shinjuku station. If only I could have taken the subway like I used to.  
I missed ordinary things like tuning out while watching the tall buildings that didn't mix with the two-story houses with laundry waving from the steel poles. It was an ill-formed skyline, but it was the one that greeted me home every single day on that orange Chuo train line.  
I remembered walking once around the Imperial Garden with Tohma saying, "Don't you hate it that they put buildings without any regard for the older buildings? There are no regulations, not like in Ginza."  
"This is the capital. What do you expect? After all, this is the business district and their aim is money. So what do they care about the scenery?"  
He suddenly became quiet. I suddenly became aware of our sudden role-reversal. There were times that even I was baffled by Tohma's childlike remarks, impulsive when away from 'I-will-win-at-ALL-costs-and-any-realm-I-c

an-reach-within-eyesight-and-beyond' mode.

Bzzz. Bzzz.  
I lifted up the cover of my Dokomi phone and read "Unread Message" on my screen. Pressing through the myriad of menu upon menu to get to a simple text message, I finally opened it ten seconds later to read: "You weren't enthusiastic about the new proposal from the sponsors, Ryuichi."

I could just imagine the way he said this: Concerned yet monotonous.  
After all, the real Tohma rarely smiled sincerely. It was a gift you had to damn well earn like if you wanted my unadulterated devotion, complete without questions.

"Heh." I grinned widely and shook my head.

Leave it to Tohma to know EXACTLY what I was thinking, not particularly corresponding with what I ACTED like I was feeling. Even twenty years later, Tohma fascinated me. Was it possible to fall any more with worship for the man?  
Not really. He continuously surprised me, provoking to keep pushing on as if my limits were of blind nonexistence.

I raised my hand for a taxi and got in, running towards my apartment twenty minutes west of Shinjuku.

I stared at the message on my screen until the light faded out. If I answered something right now, he'd feel compelled to answer me back, but if I didn't, he'd worry in his own silent way.  
Reaching an inner compromise, I decided to text him back saying, "Tohma, I'm really tired so I'll talk to you tomorrow after thinking about it some more."

That seemed satisfying enough. He would read behind the lines that I was upset and yet it gave me enough downtime to prepare for the resolution I already decided inside my mind as soon as I stepped out of the restaurant:

 **I can't stay here anymore.**

 **Please let me alone…**

 **To do what?**

 **Because…**

 **I still didn't understand that part yet.**

 _/Restlessly turning over, I looked at the window of my room and pulled the covers to my neck. In the darkness with the cicadas singing outside, I was already pushing outside of the window inside of my mind. I wanted to go away. With ease, I was jumping off the balcony and landing on the grass below._  
 _I was running far away from this hell that was called home._

 _I wanted to runaway so badly, but I just couldn't do it knowing all that I had to do._

 _In the end, I could not think of myself._

 _It was because I was always reminded of that time when I watched someone else fall apart because of it. Knowing this alone, I just couldn't do it. It wasn't that I lacked courage. It was that between being hurt and hurting someone else…_

 _…I always chose the other person. I willingly took the impact knowing how much I could take because I didn't know how the other person would take it._

 _One Winter night, Tohma stood in his genkan with his arms to his sides as I stepped through the door of his apartment ready to start studying. But his eyes were totally gone._

 _"My lucky charm is lost," he announced in his usual, calm voice. Tohma looked straight at me with blank eyes._  
 _My eyes watched him in alarm. NOTHING ever got to Seguchi Tohma. NOTHING._

 _I held his shoulders as he stood there with all guards off. For once, he shed his armor to show me he was human with what he said. His whole body wouldn't move; he was absolutely numb._

 _"Your lucky charm?" I looked at him curiously and confused. He never alluded to anything sentimental in his life except when it came to composing music. But even that contained his inner most feelings in a clean, yet passionate fashion._  
 _He closed his eyes and flashed his wallet at me, clearing his throat._  
 _"Your cousin, Suguru-kun?"_  
 _Tohma pinched his chin hard and stood there with a concentrated look. "I sent every bodyguard I had."_  
 _"Are you stupid?! If he's gone, then he wants YOU to find him!"_  
 _"I..."_  
 _I was getting impatient. "Why the hell are you still here?!"_  
 _He closed his eyes tightly. "Because I looked everywhere I possibly knew before I asked anyone else to help me."_  
 _I stood there dumbfounded._

 _It was at this moment that I knew where Tohma's one tightly closed wound was located and exactly where I had protected him as he took care of me with all of his pride._

 _Immediately, we switched faces. I was the one who had to act fast. With a determined stance, I decisively instructed, "Stay here at home while I look for him then."_  
 _When he heard this, Tohma sat down at the genkan. He took off his gloves and his palms were full of marks. And his white socks were bled through._

 _He couldn't even walk anymore. Where had he gone?_  
 _Tohma, who gave verbal pain but never wanted to feel it physically, would do anything for that boy. And I was a little jealous over it…_

 _Could someone ever feel like that for me someday?_  
 _I was too ashamed to continue this train of thought._

 _When I opened the door, I ran to the fire escape. When I did, I found a little boy shivering in the cold. "You!" I shouted as he got up and crunched up his face, not knowing if he should have runaway or if he was going to stay put for me to take his hand._  
 _I took off my thick red jacket and put it over him._  
 _"I-I-I" he stammered with tears and snot dribbling down his small face._  
 _I sighed and patted his head. "Tohma…Tohma's hands are bleeding because of you."_  
 _Being a child, he didn't understand and I took his hand to lead him back to Tohma._

 _As soon as I opened the door, Tohma's face filled with anticipation and immediately diverted his eyes to the small figure that stepped into the door._

 _Not being too discreet, he immediately shouted as soon as Suguru stood before him guiltily. "Suguru! Why did you do such a thing?!"_  
 _"I don't want to be at home anymore so I was trying to find my way to your house by myself."_  
 _"You know my number. I will always come to you!"_  
 _"But Mother and Father will know where I am if they heard me."_  
 _"You're still not supposed to go just like-"_  
 _"I knew you'd take care of me because they- THEY~!."_

 _Suguru wailed the way that I always wanted to in front of someone._

 _Tohma just looked at me as he wrapped his two arms tightly around Suguru, collapsed into his lap crying harder and harder._

 _I would never forget the way his eyes told me everything. He told wordlessly the reason why he greeted me the day he saw me working at a construction site even though I was rich, making my own money for music without anyone's help:_

 **This is my treasure. I don't know how to take care of it  
and I don't know how to do extreme things like you, but you know how far I'll go.  
In this way, I'm exactly like you.**

 **I nodded understanding and left.**

 _Because of that look, I knew I couldn't ever worry Tohma like that. I knew what it meant for him to show me such a sight.  
I knew exactly what I was worth to him even if I didn't consider myself anything of value…/_

As soon as I got home, I turned on the lights of my apartment. I threw my shoes off to one side and walked inside to the living room. Looking at the stacks of papers on one side and the other half being tidy and feeling untouched by the clutter, I had become aware more and more that I was splitting into two again. Though one part of me was constantly hiding the other one, they were trying so much to respect one another's space. I was reserved inside and the image of being so energetic outside was slowly becoming hard to maintain.

My strength alone wasn't the only answer anymore.  
Something else was wrong and I was racking my brain trying to figure out what for a long, long time since I'd arrived back here in my home country.

Being yourself and knowing you could become more were two things I've ceaselessly fought inside of myself.  
Nothing was ever good enough.

 ** _Even if I had everything…  
Even when I earned everything…  
What do you do when you're on the other side of the rainbow?_**

 _ **After you fulfill your dream, what happens? No one ever tells you because, well, only few people have gone that far.**_  
 _ **I always felt out of place that way.**_

 _ **Who do I talk to?**_  
 _ **Who could I talk to?**_

 _ **Even if I had the chance to,**_  
 _ **who could feel through my explanation and 'know' it?**_

Even if Tohma could understand me the best from all the people in this world because he was my best friend, even he didn't understand my single-mindedness to work towards something. The only thing he thought was logical, if A factors and B circumstances plus C talking all added up, then a certain result ensued with at least a ninety-eight percent output. The two percent of luck was my department, outweighing even all of his strategizing.

There was that one person though…  
The one whom I deemed the closest to me without me opening my mouth at all…  
I was spellbound by the prospect of finding Him again and again in this city. Everything reminded me of Him.

I created him to be my equal. There was no one could understand me and my passion towards one single thing. Everyone was lost. They didn't have a dream and if they did, they gave in to all the things that the rest of this society told you: Be like everyone else.

If one person smiled more than you, you should shun them.

It couldn't be helped. Tokyo didn't want someone who was an individual; it just supported someone who could follow what 'the authorities' thought the public needed.

These were the underlying words that the sponsors were trying to tell me today.

 _ **But NO ONE tells ME what to do.  
Even if I nodded my head and said "Hai hai, wakarimashita!",  
it was still my own choice to stay.**_

 _ **No one EVER intimidated or controlled me.**_  
 _ **This was the strength of my power,**_

 _ **The one of 'myself'.**_

Years ago, I had fought it but this was too ridiculous now. I wasn't going to fight the same war again.  
I'd already won it, didn't I?

So even more, I clung onto the affection I had for Him. I tried to give him something only few people gave you in your lifetime:

 ** _Inspiration._**

We fed each other with more than competition; it was with the need to create music and the want to be recreated again and again from the inside of your heart. The more I was provoked and vexed by his enthusiasm, the more I was absorbed of wanting to cruelly put him back into his place and allthemore possessive of wanting to have him, all of him, to be mine.

 ** _To see only me._**

That was, of course, impossible.

I began to feel an ache in my chest gradually cringing itself out. I immediately went to my bedroom and opened my closet. I took one last glance around the room and took out my duffel bag.  
It was the same one I used when I began doing my lives. Though Tohma was my classmate, we weren't close yet. I was running all over the place after school trying to perform everywhere I thought I could.  
I bowed and I pleaded with record stores. I did public announcements and even researched on restaurants, bars, and live houses where my predecessors performed. Yes, I was underaged and they knew it, but some people didn't care as long as I was happy, vigorous and willing to promote their businesses.

The power of smiling sincerely shouldn't ever be underestimated.

I took this duffel bag as my only friend. As ratty as it may have been, there was no way that I could ever throw it away. It was older than Kuma, but just as important.

I kissed Kumagorou as he popped his head from the side pocket with a 'hi!' I smiled widely at him. "You're such a good rabbit. Sorry I crushed you this morning though."

So, why was it easier to talk to a million people into buying your records but not the one you were in love with? The one you learned to secretly sing to in all of your albums?

The frustration turned into anger. My hands reached out for the few clothes that had any meaning for me. Whether I left everything behind here or just continued to pay for everything here as I had, right now, nothing seemed to matter.  
It was irresponsible and it was irrational, but I always believed that if you wanted something, you just had to do as you pleased. No matter how much you planned for something, there would always be a screwball that would come.

You just had to believe in your ability to get through.

The cowboy hat, two pairs of jeans, three blouses (white, red, and sky blue), a gray vest, and some jewelry were all I cared about. They all had sentimental value from pieces of my life.  
I stepped out of my walk-in closet and closed its white doors.

Turning around while putting the duffel bag's strap onto my shoulder, I looked into my reflection. I looked so tired. I couldn't sleep for a long while, excited by the prospect of 'tomorrow'.

It was like being a kid waiting for a gift and that gift was 'the present'.  
I didn't know what tomorrow held, and yet I wanted to be alive to give what I could and to receive what it had to offer.

Only Shuichi knew what that ever meant, even though I never said so to him.

From somewhere deep inside, I knew I was changing away from that. Maybe, I knew I was not satisfied with this. I still hadn't reached where I'd wanted to be though I was the idol of Japan. It wasn't money I aimed for, but to reach people. If only I could make my friends no longer worry and take care of the people I loved and yet live as I wanted to.

To shine brighter and brighter each day even if that responsibility to keep it all afloat would bring me to terms with the darkness that would ransack my very soul with its relentless brutality, this was my true wish.

I wanted others to see a world beyond this one. I want to give them the love I couldn't shower upon myself.

I grinned at myself and nodded. "Ittekimasu!" I whispered eagerly, looking into my own eyes.

 _ **When I was little, I thought of myself as a steel metal plate. I was born with everything on a silver platter, but with each scratch of life, thin or thick upon me,**_

 _ **An unfaithful friend who I thought would never spread gossip about me,**_  
 _ **Failing grades with a mind that used to be the best in class,**_  
 _ **With relatives that acted as if their small kingdom was the whole world,**_  
 _ **Being looked upon for everything but myself,**_  
 _ **And always, ALWAYS looking for a love that would accept me as myself…**_

 _ **The gashes upon that plate made it less and less visible to see myself. So I relied on people's reactions to me in order to see myself through them.**_

 _ **Could I keep my heart pure or was I as ugly as I thought I was?**_

 _ **I was always stuck inside of myself.**_

 _ **I was really angry that there were no people to talk to. Even if there were so many people, they couldn't give me any advice. I was always disappointed by the fact that most of the people my age were trying to make me 'realistic' by telling me to go find someone to marry and that all that I needed right now was a partner. But the partner that I wanted was not the same in the sense that they may have thought. I didn't want anything sexual. I wanted someone who was there, who would love me and a friendship that would endure.**_

 _ **It would always evolve.**_

 _ **We could be sexual attracted to one another, but that wouldn't be the basis for our relationship. I didn't want things to start off so superficially. Sure, to have the same hobbies was important, but I felt that I was searching for someone who would teach me about refining my philosophies of life and connected to me with a way of thinking that was similar yet so diverse from my own.**_  
 _ **In the end, I just wanted something to stay and grow.**_  
 _ **Everything felt so temporary.**_

 _ **So easy to attain.**_  
 _ **So boring and unchallenging.**_

 _ **If I could no longer change the environment I was in and if I hit my limit with it, then it was time to leave.**_

 _ **I was just waiting for the moment.**_  
 _ **I wanted to change myself again.**_

 _ **Now was that moment.**_

Without looking back, I turned off the lights and left my apartment and locked it painfully.

But when I stepped out, there was a little pink hat sticking out from the corner. My eyes opened in horror though inside my heart was beating wildly. Was I dreaming?  
He took my hand and we ran down the emergency staircase.

"What are you doing here?!"

"It's my turn!" His voice rang like bells inside the metal staircase. His grin was so wide, I was so moved, almost to the point that I could have cried.  
He was always changing…

…but his face was always the same no matter how old he got.

The radiance I told him to learn, he exceeded my expectations.

Inwardly, I beamed at myself and at his accomplishment.

I could only hold onto his fingers, but he firmly took my hand into his. The clicking of his boots down the metal staircase made a melody in my head that suggested strength of going towards something certain rather than the weakness of running away.

In fact, I was surprised to have him say, "This way is better than any car." I blinked at him as I looked at a worn-out bike.  
"You surely are an interesting one." I smirked as he sat on his bike.  
"I don't make you laugh on purpose," he answered while waiting for me sit behind him. "I'm just saying my real opinions. Now let's GO!"  
I lifted up my fist up and then wrapped one of my arms around his waist. "YAY!"

I held my bag closely next to me

He pedaled away and I wondered where he would take me, but I didn't question anything. Without a word, he laughed as he biked around the city for me. First we went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Building and ate some ice cream. Then he sped down to Ebisu Tower to take funny pictures with the closed display windows. He even went all the way back up to Ikebukuro's Sunshine 60 and the guard on duty looked at us funny as we ran from one side to the other, trying to guess where the other was looking at.

I giggled so much my face and stomach hurt. I didn't even know that five hours had passed.

As dawn was approaching, we reached Tokyo Tower.

I watched him effortlessly go through each high rise structure with all the guards letting us go through. When had you learned to talk as well as Tohma?

I followed him thinking that even I was still shy deep inside.

Putting my bag down near the elevator, I walked over to my favorite side.

I knew I'd be sucked in by this indirect bribe…  
Tohma surely knew where to get me…

I wanted to regain a precious feeling I'd lost somehow. Clamored with all the distractions of Tokyo's everyday rush of trifles, I'd forgotten what I had done at that those times: To look down from the Heavens.  
For a while now, I'd been praying and looking up at the sky like a dreamer. I'd temporarily forgotten the very thing I'd taught everyone to do: To remember what it was to fly and to see things from above and yet feel all the things on the surface of the Earth.

That if everything were only pain, it'd truly be a despairing loneliness.

We walked up all six hundred steps to watch the sky grow lighter and lighter. It was a familiar sight that I'd liked since childhood. As the city slept, I was awake. There were times I couldn't go to sleep, awaiting for Tomorrow and wanting Today to never end.  
This was the feeling I kept inside of me until now, and the reason why I'd become such an insomniac.  
It wasn't that I wasn't doing anything, but the fact that I had enjoyed it all so very much.

Like a child, I was wrapped inside like candy, enjoying every moment even if I knew that it would soon be gone. And it all had to do with just Time itself, nothing to do with effort or will.

I sat on the counter looking out onto Rainbow Bridge. And tears began to fill my eyes.

"You didn't sound like yourself in the press conference." He leaned on the counter with his elbows, turning his head to his right to face me.  
"You are always smiling but sometimes it's sad. And though you are genki all the time, sometimes I feel you're forcing yourself." He looked at me though I felt like he wanted to touch me. "But this is the Ryuichi…this is the one that I think is real. Not a totally serious one, but calm and reserved. Quiet and contemplative."

You saw through me?

Of the tears I'd been holding all this time, a single one went down my cheek.

"I have to leave this place. It's beautiful, but I can't stay here any longer."  
"Why?"  
"Until you leave this country, you won't understand what I mean. You can't see what I see because I can't live here nor there. I understand both places but both of them can't accept me as I am. I'm homeless."  
"But-" His eyes pleaded with me.

I stopped talking. It wasn't because he was young or stupid. No, it was because I had seen very far ahead. I wasn't like anyone when I left Japan and by doing all I did outside of it, I became more isolated from it, bringing more of my true self out. But even if I loved Los Angeles, I wasn't American either. I couldn't live there for the rest of my life either.

If only I could make you understand…  
…but until this point, this would be my vision alone.

"Where will you go?"  
"I will start all over again. I will look for a new dream, Shuichi. There are many of them."  
"I need you here. There is a part of me even Yuki can't reach and only you can." He held onto my shoulder with a grip of his fingers on my yellow t-shirt.

If…if only I could be just as honest but my pride could never let me admit the need to be loved, and so I kept on giving it out to people freely, hoping it could be returned one day.

Opening my hands, I pressed against the cold glass as if I could grasp onto that distant white bridge. Why I loved it so much, I half knew and half didn't. It rapidly changed colors at night but looked so plain during the day.

Each color held its own personality.  
And every time I walked that bridge, before I was completely recognizably famous that I couldn't go anywhere without being followed, I felt a little closer to myself, answering the question I couldn't when I was riding around Tokyo.

My reflected self looked at him and then my eyes watched the bridge again.

My voice echoed in the silence of his breathing as the dawn was taking over the sky. The rain anticipated by the tv weather forecasters were all wrong.

Today, there was a nice breeze and it caressed Tokyo Tower affectionately, and the trees below greeted us.

Becoming pointed and exacting, the reflection of my eyes darted at Him.  
"You stand there as if you've known me all my life.

But until now, you've only seen me as your mentor, the singer you couldn't reach.

And I have been here, at this place, since childhood. Not on a pedestal or a stage. I have, like any other human, been hiding here inside of myself, waiting to recognized. You don't know that whenever I smile, I have hidden all the things that people said against me.

How strange I am. What a kiss up I am. That I'm adopted. That I'm this or that.

I didn't earn any of this. No one does. It's the world's own judgments though I tried so hard to live the clean life I always have. Fighting everyday with all that I had and understood, I lived the best that I could. Though other people tried to compartmentalize me into what their definition of happiness was, I knew that I could never follow that.

These are things that your eyes could not ever see beyond the microphone, Shuichi.

My sister Nuriko…  
My best friend Tohma…  
That cute, seductive Tatsuha…  
But most of all, You.

I didn't want you see me like that.

So, I sang. Even more so, I wrote so many unfinished pieces. I pretended that the person outside and the one inside were completely different. They existed inside the same person but they were against each other to be the real 'me'.

Yet they couldn't be any more different than a stuffed animal and a computer.

Everyone always thought that I was one or the other. Only some could believe that I was both.

Only you and Tohma knew I was.

I held these things inside of my heart, not wanting to bother anyone.

I wanted to live in a world where I didn't bother anyone. I could be in a crowd and I didn't want to hurt anyone. They could hurt me but I didn't want to deal with the repercussions of hurting someone because it meant that I would have a stain on my soul.

Somehow, that was unrealistic. No matter how good a person you are, there is a part of you that has to know darkness. You cannot be one of something without understanding the other side of something."

Rainbow Bridge became wavy. My fingertips pressed further and my hands hurt but I couldn't stop pushing.

"I was a child that people said was stupid and that I couldn't do anything. But as I tell this to you, I want you to know that I have chosen the people of this world. I have chosen to love them because in the pain of discrimination and all the aches given to me, I found a happiness that surpassed all that, with other people from this same world.

But I also created another world to coexist with it. It was one not out of illusion or denial, but one that could surpass the prejudices of the one I grew up in. This was the realm of Music.

Love was love.  
Man was man and woman was woman.  
A child and old person were as is.

You are as you are and I am as I am.

I didn't judge you for what you did or who you were, just don't harm other people while doing it. You can reach your ambition, but don't intentionally hurt someone just to get your way. You end up paying more than what you what you wanted from it.

I cannot tell people what I have learned. They have to see things for themselves. All I wanted was for them to see their potential to be more. To not let that dream die, I wanted to give it to you. It was the gift of that knowledge, effort, and love of my life that I am giving into your hands, Shuichi.

I had decided this ever since I saw you on stage.

I know when people look at me, they either hate me or they love me. I know why: They had to face themselves when they got to me.

After a while, I knew that I was a still inside of myself. I always would feel alone somehow.  
I knew it was only a small chance to find someone stronger than myself. I gave up on finding a partner. I knew who I was and what I was capable of.  
I could not give my love to just one person.

These are the things people come to face with when they are with me. They are not looking at a mirror: They are looking at the future.

This was why you fell to your knees that day, didn't you?"

I became silent. Desperately, I kept my eyes on the bridge…

…until you put your hands over mine. Your hands covered my own and I felt your beating chest pressing upon my back. Your breath tickled my ear as you sang to me and I closed my eyes absorbing you, shocked at what had come back to haunt me.

My first song. The same one where Tohma slapped me hard on the face and I fell back with a bruised cheek. I had never seen him mad, but he was fucking pissed at my performance…

 _/"I didn't come here for this puppet. If I wanted that, I would have created one myself. You are a SINGER. YOU MUST SING AS RYUICHI. Not as the generic idol with a cute face, but the thing that makes you, YOU. Now get up and do it one more time with all the things I put my faith into._

 _You made me believe in a miracle, and I won't let you go back to that world where you were inside yourself. If you're lost, I'll be lost WITH YOU."_

 _His eyes yet again amazed me. They flashed with worry._

 _His nerves were frazzled. I had never seen him like this and I thanked Kamisama that someone so apathetic could show much emotion for me._  
 _That was the first time I got up and took his face into my hands, kissing him on the cheek, on the side where he punched me._

 _I took the microphone again into my hands when I went back onto the stage. That was the day I felt the change coincided with my singing._  
 _I now understood that the gaps among my various selves temporarily met whenever I sang._

 _For a few minutes, I was whole./_

"All I wanted was to be able  
To paint all the things

Inside of my head.

Before, it was such a sad dream.  
All I did was cry  
And I didn't want to get to know myself.

Still, goodness is what it is  
And though I had not recognized it at all,  
People pointed it to me,  
To reach for that unattainable place humans always  
Aspire for but cannot handle,  
Nor understand.

But I believed in this path  
As much as those people pushed me  
To get what they themselves couldn't.

In this friendless sorrow,  
All I could do was cry,  
"When would it all end?'

I wasn't afraid to fall.  
I was afraid to fail,  
To stop trying all together.

There are things only  
We ourselves can do  
To save ourselves,

It is greater than  
The will to live.

In this, I put my faith  
To color upon everything  
I touched,  
To reach every possible  
Greatness,  
To achieve  
That happiness

Which surely would lead  
To more tears  
And things I didn't want to give up.

But it all came out  
Into a rainbow  
Woven from my own hands,

This blanket that only  
I had made  
To hold the  
World so close to me."

He looked into my reflection and I stared back at him.

Resisting my words, he answered just as seriously, "But I can no longer be satisfied with being in the background. I cannot have someone higher than me and want to compete with them just because they are there.  
I want to be the best. And if that meant something painful for myself, to surpass my tangible ideal, you Ryuichi-sama,

then I have to.

To make you look at me not in envy or in hate, but for me to respect myself. To learn that I couldn't have it both ways. I couldn't be happy with the frustration of knowing I really didn't try my best though I said so all these years.  
You don't know what you're capable of until you actual do it. Theory is different from action. Think all you want but this world moves when you do something, taking a step towards change and being dynamic.

That's what you taught me when I was little, looking up at Tokyo Tower in your music video with that song playing in Shinjuku's VisionScreen as I held my mother's hand trying to cross the street.

Because I respected you, I couldn't be complacent from where I stood.  
Because you are the way you are, you are always changing and growing and evolving, no one could keep up with you. But I wanted to.

Helplessly, I couldn't stay at the same place I'd wanted to. You always inspired me.

Yuki can get jealous all he wants, but I know this is deeper than love itself.  
And I will always be with you even though it's not the way we both expected."

I sat there awed.

 ** _I couldn't have inspired such a person…no, not me._**

The tears I that were frozen, finally came out of my eyes after years of hardening. I felt like I was talking to myself, the past, the present, and the future all in a single moment. I didn't waver and I didn't sob as we looked at one another's mirrored faces. Proudly and vulnerably, I was honored and shocked.  
Was I so wrapped with trying to grow so much that I didn't know someone loved me so much they felt me without me knowing?

And the thing I sought for was not exactly in the form I wanted…  
…but exactly the way I wanted it.

"Tohma will be mad to know that you have just reassured me to leave this country and start something new."

"That's exactly what he wanted me to do."

Touma…  
…maybe he too…  
…had always returned my feelings without me really knowing what he was thinking…

I really respected, yet resented the fact that the more our friendship, bond, whatever it was called, stood the test of time, the more I came to know about him, the more I knew why he did everything the way he did, and why I was choosing a 'self' that was similar to his, but in the other extreme.

I would always be the one who would stand out brightly while he lived in the 'middle'.

I had always cared for him, caring more each day, but not in love with him. Just the way he was. I really just looked up to Tohma for the person he secretly was, away from the public's view.  
Until I had met him, I had hated myself for who I was.

Yet, like myself, his pride wouldn't let him say the things that mattered most to him. He didn't know how to. Tohma was innocent like that. It was a side only Mika could openly touch, but not me.

But as I looked at Shuichi, I saw the self I had yet to catch and the one I had become. Yet through him, there was the person I thought I was and there was the one that had yet to be discovered.

 ** _This happiness had a severe price:  
For your acceptance, I would always love you though  
you would never return it the way I wanted to love you._**

He whispered into my ear. "Don't carry it all alone."  
I leaned back as I felt his heart beat fiercely against my back even harder. His fingers interlocking with mine even tighter.

Thump. He leaned his head against the window and pressed eyes onto my shoulder, kissing through my shirt and into my skin with his lips.

We couldn't go any further from here though we wanted to.

We would be adults. No longer children like the way we connected.

 _/"Someone would have to convince me of something like that.  
"Why?"  
"Because too many people have touched me…"  
Tohma's face held a puzzled yet subtly expression of horror, shocked by my candidness about the subject of sex._

 _On a public street, in the main road in Ginza, I didn't care who understood me. I told Tohma in English, "I was raped a long time ago."_

 _How…how can you smile like nothing close to that ever happened to you? He couldn't ask that question that was written all over his face._

 _I didn't say it out of wanting sympathy. I had to tell him the truth because I'm not mad and didn't want to live like a victim for it. That was stupid. My mind accepted it and I chose to live stronger than that. But my body remembered the trauma. It always will._  
 _Somehow, I overcame it._

 _"That's why," I finished, "someone would have to be very special for me to even think of doing something like that."_

 _I had known things that only people with dirty hands knew. I was one of the things they had touched…_

 _My image of taking off my clothes on stage was always so different from the reserved person I was inside my music room at home. These were layers of layers of things that I would perpetually hold secretly from developing into self-bitterness and other's eyes looking at me in pity./_

He took off his right hand and started to reach up from the bottom of my shirt.  
"Shuichi, you shouldn't-"  
He kissed me into silence, but I turned my head away to pull his lips away. His hand already made contact with the inside of my shirt. The warmth of his hand on my stomach made my skin tingle.

I was becoming dizzy.

I knew the lines that shouldn't have been crossed and I knew what didn't belong to me.

"You don't belong to me," I said with my voice cracking from desperation, making known aloud what I didn't ever want to admit.  
So, I tried to take his hands away from me.

"But you belong to me. Not the singer. The real Ryuichi helplessly staring at Rainbow Bridge. The one I want to know he isn't alone."

My heart beat faster though I was becoming paralyzed by guilt and anticipation, not knowing what was happening. What I wanted and what shouldn't were clashing. I wasn't dreaming or going to wake up from this moment.

I still tried to push away and turn around to tell him it was not to be.

Resisting my protest, he shook his head. "Outside of here, I would have listened to you. But at this moment, be selfish and stop trying to be everything you are trying with all your strength to keep up."

"But Yuki...I know people who have to live with what happens…I don't want to ruin-"

When did you become stronger than me?

Suddenly, holding me closer, he had a voice I had never heard before. It was serious and calm. It was determined and sweet, yet so humble too.  
"Since I was a child, I have loved you since you looked up to Tokyo Tower. I have tried so hard to be everything for you to notice me. You were always so close but so far away from my reach. Please…"

I didn't move.  
My chest was breaking in front of You though my face tried to keep firm.

"You haven't left my thoughts since I was a child and until the day I die, I will always be with you. You are my dream, Ryuichi. And being selfish, I won't let anyone else take the place I have fought so hard to get."  
He held his breath and placed his right hand on my chest, grabbing my heart.

Nodding slowly, I stopped pushing him away, turning around to face him,  
to let him do as he pleased.

He took up my hands and kissed the palms. Then, he closed his eyes and whispered into my ear, "Thank you. Please forgive me."  
At that moment, he pushed his tongue into my mouth. Pulling off my shirt over my arms, but not all the way, I slowly took it off as he sucked on my nipples and his hands held each of my ribs between his palms.  
Kissing my stomach, I was already holding my breath for what was to come, but when he undid my zipper, his fingers ran through half my hair and cupped over my left cheek. He told me what I wanted to hear, I kept on repeating in my serious tone, "One more time. Tell me again."

I cringed every time the tip of his tongue touched my ear and one hand would be on my back while the other would touch every part of my body that I didn't know could be sensitive…

I couldn't think anymore as I shouted his name. When he crouched down to drink what I used to think was so shameful when I remembered that awful time…  
My fingers took a hold of his hair. "Shuichi…I…AH!"

My whole body jerked as my back pushed upward, unable to move anywhere else.  
For as long as I could, he let me be greedy to hear the words I knew he would never say outside of these windows.

I would always feel them.  
But I wouldn't hear them aloud ever again.

When our breathing was in sync and he draped his arms around me, I held him with our sweat dripping and my jean legs draping that small part of the tile floor.

I couldn't talk anymore but I kept on slowly kissing his hair and every part of his face as if making a wish with each kiss. He just smiled sweetly at me.

The dawn came a long time ago, but the city slowly rose and we had to also leave this place of refuge. Silently, we left to go down the elevator holding hands.

Then, I finally let it out, "I love you, Shuichi."  
It was the first time I said it aloud though he screamed it with all of his body and voice to me all these years.

He grinned childishly with his teeth showing. But he looked away embarrassed, mumbling, "You're the one who taught me how."

When the doors opened, I let go without looking behind me. Picking up my bag next to the elevator, I ran outside to see Tohma with arms and legs crossed. He was smoking a cigarette with his black suit, waiting for me on the bench in front of the crepe shop with a car waiting for me.

Shuichi stood next to his bike at the entrance of the Tower and watched me leave.

I held my bag in my lap as the car drove effortlessly through the morning traffic. I took out my "Bad" cap and passed through Rainbow Bridge with another layer of memories embedded inside of me.  
Tohma and I didn't talk all the way to the airport. I just looked outside of the window with a new sense of wonder and the everlasting sense of excitement that wouldn't die inside of me.

At the gate of his private jet, I patted his back. "I'm glad that I bothered you when you were grumpy when we were in class together."  
He smirked at me. "Damn you for capturing me with your brain."  
"Is that a compliment, Tohma?" I smiled and poked him. "Hm hm?!"  
He pulled my cap over my face and cleared his throat.

I smiled and kissed him on the cheek. I gave him the victory sign and turned around with only my duffel bag over my shoulder.

"Don't forget to come back."  
"Roger. Stop nagging me."  
"Don't worry so much, Tohma~!" I said in my energetically, cute voice. "Wherever you are, I will follow you. I am your pet alien."  
"That's why the leash extends very far."

Even the great owner of NG Productions turned away and pushed me to go. But I forced him to look at me with both of my hands on his face. He squirmed and shook his head to stop me from holding onto him.  
"Stop it." His arrogance spoke for itself.

Staring at him like I did the first time he said he wanted to make a band with me, "I promise to come back home."

 **/++/++/++**

Weeks later, there was a news report in Japan about some country in Europe having a singer on the stone bridge that looked a lot like me. One Japanese tourist took a video of the song I sang with only a sky blue cd playing boombox.  
Dignified, Kumagorou leaned on it, blasting its music excitedly and joyfully at what new adventure it would pave...

"There are things that can only be done  
And there are things only we can do.  
I've watched from high rooftops  
And I've crawled on the dirt floor.  
All I did was an effort to catch the colors  
I longed to fall in love with.

But their nature is to be  
Translucent and transcendent.  
There is no way to capture them  
But you are caught within their charm.  
It is a power I can only touch upon  
But cannot ever possess.

You were so far away  
And an angel talked to you,  
A language you've forgotten.  
Certainly, such things couldn't exist

But you are here,  
Aren't you?

The courage to see things eye-to-eye isn't to be underestimated  
Nor undermined.

I believe in things that should have died so long ago.

Yet I want the ultimate vision

Where the clouds showed blue  
Even though a typhoon  
Was coming through,

This miracle you gave to my eyes alone.

I am only myself  
But I am not alone.  
Love inside  
Made me understand those elusive colors,

A strength like magic.

Something only children know."

Not wanting to cry in public, I had looked up to the clearest blue sky I had ever seen in my entire life.

 **Owari./The End.**

 **Author's Note:** I was making four other fics, but I abandoned them for the moment. Moved to tears, I was shaking with anticipation to make this story. Though I was tired and stressed, every night, in the back of my mind, I thought, "Where did I hide Ryuichi? Is he suffocating inside of me?" Has Tokyo really hidden that part I tried so hard to develop after years of being 'quiet'?  
I no longer write my stories to just get my ideas out, but I write with the intention of caring for the readers that may feel as I do. Even if I write these fics on the net and may forever be obscure in the face of many other authors, I will probably be inspired by Kotani Kinya, Hideaki Matsuoka, and Tokyo Babylon forever to keep going and thinking life is awesome because I was able to come across them.  
I wish someday that I will live they way Ryuichi instructed to Shuichi. Someday, my wish is to reach Ryuichi's stage (all puns intended) and not always feel like Shuichi…

My new dream feels so…far.

It just amazed me that after all this time, I could still write Ryuichi's heart after a long long while of being afraid I'd lost it somewhere along the line, shadowed by Subaru's Tokyo. I live my life with Ryuichi's actions but with Subaru's mind.

Thank you for reading. I hope it made sense. I know it is long but many things for listening to me.

Sincerely with Love,  
miyamoto yui

9/26/2008 10:55:30 AM – Los Angeles  
9/27/08 2:55 AM - Tokyo


End file.
